He is accused of causing the accident by taking the liner too close to rocks near the island of Giglio, off Italy’s west coast – and of abandoning the liner while many passengers and crew were still aboard.

He told Italy’s Channel 5 he does not accept full blame for the wreck, but said: “I feel guilty for having been distracted.”

He was making a phone call to a man on shore – a retired captain he was in the process of saluting - when the accident happened, and that the navigation at that moment was under another officer's control.

He apologized to his countrymen in the interview, saying: “It is normal that I should say sorry, that I should apologize.”

He said he thought about the victims a lot, and became emotional when reminded of five-year-old Daiana Arlotti, the youngest to die. “This question devastates me, it is terrible... Let's leave it-- please.”

As the cruise ship Costa Allegra is slowly towed back to shore, in an extraordinary coincidence, one of the people on board is the sister of a passenger who was on the Costa Concordia. ITV's Lee Comley reports

Schettino said he turned the ship abruptly, after realizing it would hit rocks, in order to save lives.